Category: Books

“The Stone Age Did Not Come to an End Because We Ran Out of Stone”

(p. A11) Far from recovering a sense of hopefulness during the relative peace of the 21st century, gloominess has become the default position of the intellectual classes in the Western world.
. . .
Ronald Bailey begs to differ. As his book demonstrates, a careful examination of the evidence shows that, at least in material terms (which is not unimportant, particularly for the world’s poor), life is getting better. The overriding reason for this, according to Mr. Bailey, is continuing technological progress, facilitated–and this is crucial–by the global triumph of market capitalism.
Among the scares examined by Mr. Bailey in “The End of Doom: Environmental Renewal in the Twenty-First Century” are overpopulation, the exhaustion of natural resources (particularly oil), the perils of biotechnology and genetic modification, and global warming.
. . .
No doubt the age of oil will one day come to an end. But as my old friend Saudi Arabia’s Sheikh Yamani used to point out, the Stone Age did not come to an end because we ran out of stone.
. . .
“The End of Doom” is not quite in the same class as Matt Ridley’s classic, “The Rational Optimist,” but it is a good book and deserves to be widely read.

For the full review, see:
NIGEL LAWSON. “BOOKSHELF; Apocalypse Later; Despite an explosion in population greater than Malthus could have ever imagined, global living standards are higher than ever.” The Wall Street Journal (Sat., July 27, 2015): A11.
(Note: the online version of the review has the date July 27, 2015.)
(Note: ellipses added.)

The book under review, is:
Bailey, Ronald. The End of Doom: Environmental Renewal in the Twenty-First Century. New York: Thomas Dunne Books, 2015.

Is Asperger’s a Disease to Be Cured or “a Way of Being” to Be Celebrated?

(p. C1) . . . until eight years ago, Mr. Robison, who wrote the 2007 memoir “Look Me in the Eye,” a touchstone in the literature of Asperger’s syndrome, had never experienced the most obvious aspect of music that neurotypical people do: its simple emotional power.
That all changed, Mr. Robison explains in “Switched On: A Memoir of Brain Change and Emotional Awakening,” when he participated in a pioneering Asperger’s study at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center in Boston in 2008. Using transcranial magnetic stimulation, or TMS, doctors hoped to activate neurological pathways in his brain that would deepen his emotional intelligence.
Driving home after his first session, Mr. Robison cranked up a song he’d heard countless times before. Before he knew it, tears were streaming down his face.
. . .
(p. C6) “Switched On” is subversive in more ways than one. In this age of heightened sensitivity to neurodiversity, one of the most uncomfortable notions you can raise about Asperger’s is that it can cruelly obscure the most basic elements of personality. The very idea is offensive and wounding to many people, because it frames a difference as a deficit; to wistfully suggest that a person with Asperger’s might be someone else without Asperger’s is to denature them completely, to wish their core identities into oblivion.
“Asperger’s is not a disease,” Mr. Robison wrote in “Look Me in the Eye.” “It’s a way of being. There is no cure, nor is there a need for one.”
In “Switched On,” Mr. Robison, 58, retains his Asperger’s pride. Part of him even fears he’ll lose his special gifts, on the (beguiling, I thought) theory that “perhaps the area that recognizes emotions in people was recognizing traits of machinery for me.”
But he is also torn. He did not come of age when “neurodiversity” was part of our vocabulary of difference. He did not come of age when “Asperger’s” was part of our vocabulary at all. He received his autism diagnosis at 40, and he has many memories of being bullied, losing jobs and mishandling social situations because of his inability to read others.
. . .
Mr. Robison still believes autism is not a disease. “But I also believed in being the best I could be,” he writes, “particularly by addressing the social blindness that had caused me the most pain throughout my life.”
But if the effects of Asperger’s can be mitigated, what consequences will that have? And what does it mean for the future of the neurodiversity movement?

For the full review, see:
JENNIFER SENIOR. “Books of The Times; Tradeoffs to Easing Asperger’s Strong Grip.” The New York Times (Mon., MARCH 21, 2016): C1 & C6.
(Note: ellipses added.)
(Note: the online version of the review has the date MARCH 20, 2016, and has the title “Books of The Times; Review: In ‘Switched On,’ John Elder Robison’s Asperger’s Brain Is Changed.”)

The book under review, is:
Robison, John Elder. Switched On: A Memoir of Brain Change and Emotional Awakening. New York: Spiegel & Grau, 2016.

Many Great Inventors Grew Up Poor and Had Little Education

(p. A13) Mr. Baker is good at pointing out the unanticipated consequences that arose from some inventions: Richard Jordon Gatling, inventor of the Gatling gun, a fearsome instrument of battlefield butchery still in use in some forms today, believed that his contribution would save lives–depending on which side of the gun you were on–because one man operating the weapon would reduce the need for other soldiers. The inventor who created television, Philo Farnsworth, believed that his device could bring about world peace. “If we were able to see people in other countries and learn about our differences, why would there be any misunderstandings?” he wrote. “War would be a thing of the past.” And you wouldn’t need the Gatling gun.
Like Farnsworth, many of the inventors in “America the Ingenious” came from impoverished upbringings and had little formal education. Walter Hunt, creator of the safety pin, was educated in a one-room schoolhouse but went on to invent scores of other items, including a device that allowed circus performers to walk upside-down on ceilings. Elisha Graves Otis, of Otis elevator fame, was a high-school dropout who, according to his son, Charles, “needed no assistance, asked no advice, consulted with no one, and never made much use of pen or pencil.” Of the innovators who undertook world-changing engineering feats, it is remarkable how often they brought them in under budget and ahead of schedule, among them the Golden Gate Bridge, Hoover Dam and New York’s Hudson and East River railroad tunnels.

For the full review, see:
PATRICK COOKE. “BOOKSHELF; The Character of Our Country; Copper-riveted jeans, the first oil rig, running shoes, dry cleaning and the 23-story-high clipper ship–as American as apple pie.” The Wall Street Journal (Sat., Oct. 5, 2016): A13.
(Note: the online version of the review has the date Oct. 4, 2016.)

The book under review, is:
Baker, Kevin. America the Ingenious: How a Nation of Dreamers, Immigrants, and Tinkerers Changed the World. New York: Artisan, 2016.

When People’s Lives Stagnate They “Often Become Angry, Resentful”

(p. 3) Benjamin M. Friedman of Harvard University, in his book “The Moral Consequences of Economic Growth” (Knopf, 2005), said that at a deep level people make judgments about the economic progress that they see in their own lifetimes, and in comparison with the progress made by the previous generation, especially their own parents. Few people study economic growth statistics. But nearly everyone knows what they are being paid. If they realize that they are doing less well than their forebears, they become anxious. And if they can’t see themselves and others in their cohort as progressing over a lifetime, their social interactions often become angry, resentful and even conspiratorial.

For the full commentary, see:
ROBERT J. SHILLER. “Economic View; Weak Economies Foment Ethnic Nationalism.” The New York Times, SundayBusiness Section (Sun., OCT. 16, 2016): 3.
(Note: the online version of the commentary has the date OCT. 14, 2016, and has the title “Economic View; What’s Behind a Rise in Ethnic Nationalism? Maybe the Economy.”)

The Benjamin Friedman book mentioned in the commentary above, is:
Friedman, Benjamin M. The Moral Consequences of Economic Growth. New York: Knopf, 2005.

Immigration Depresses Wages of Low-Wage Americans

(p. A11) Mr. Borjas is himself an immigrant, having at age 12 fled from Cuba to Miami with his widowed mother in 1962, just before the Cuban Missile Crisis shut down legal exits. As a labor economist, he has spent much of his academic career studying the effects of immigration on the American jobs market, often arguing that immigration depresses wages, or job opportunities, at the lower end of the scale. Here he notes that, on balance, the added production supplied by immigrants makes a modest contribution to U.S. economic growth. He generously provides readers with arguments on all sides, including Milton Friedman’s wry observation that illegal immigrants are of more net benefit to the American economy than legals because they make less use of welfare-state services.
. . .
After totting up the pluses and minuses, Mr. Borjas concludes that immigration has very little effect on the lives of most Americans. He does worry, however, that some future wave might bring along with it the “institutional, cultural and political baggage that may have hampered development in the poor countries” from which immigrants often come, and he sees a need for reforms.

For the full review, see:

GEORGE MELLOAN. “BOOKSHELF; The Immigration Debate We Need.” The Wall Street Journal (Weds., Oct. 19, 2016): A11.
(Note: ellipsis added.)

The book under review, is:
Borjas, George J. We Wanted Workers: Unraveling the Immigration Narrative. New York: W. W. Norton & Company, 2016.

Let Individual Indians Own Land on Reservations

Mortgaging homes is a common way for entrepreneurs to provide initial funds for their startups. So our keeping individual Indians from owning land on reservations, cuts off their access to funds for entrepreneurship.
The commentary quoted below is related to a book edited by Anderson and contributed to by Regan.

(p. A13) . . . , Native Americans showed a remarkable ability to adapt to new goods and technology. Italian trade beads became an integral part of American Indian decoration and art. The Spanish horse transformed Plains Indian hunting and warfare.

Over centuries, however, these adaptations and innovations have been replaced by subjugation by the U.S. government. In 1831, Chief Justice John Marshall declared the Cherokees to be a “domestic dependent nation” and characterized the relationship of tribes to the U.S. as resembling “that of a ward to his guardian.” Marshall’s words were entrenched when Congress became trustee of all Indian lands and resources under the Dawes Act of 1887.
In recent decades, the government has paid lip service to “tribal sovereignty,” but in practice Native Americans have little autonomy. Tribes and individual Indians still cannot own their land on reservations. This means Native Americans cannot mortgage their assets for loans like other Americans, thus allowing them little or no access to credit. This makes it incredibly difficult to start a business in Indian Country. Even when tribes try to engage in economic activity, the feds impose mountains of regulations, all in the name of looking after Indian affairs.

For the full commentary, see:
TERRY L. ANDERSON and SHAWN REGAN. “It’s Time for the Feds to Get Out of Indian Country; A permit to develop energy resources requires 49 steps on tribal lands and just four steps off reservations.” The Wall Street Journal (Sat., Oct. 8, 2016): A13.
(Note: ellipsis added.)
(Note: the online version of the commentary has the date Oct. 7, 2016.)

The book mentioned at the top of this entry, is:
Anderson, Terry L., ed. Unlocking the Wealth of Indian Nations. Lanham, Maryland: Lexington Books, 2016.

Once Great A.&P. Was “Going Out of Business for a Long Time”

(p. 17) Linda Fisch stopped at the A.&P. on Riverdale Avenue in the Bronx on Thursday and bought eight prepackaged containers of cottage cheese and fruit. She did not realize the store had become a footnote to history.
That A.&P. is the last in New York City, where the once-mighty chain was born just before the Civil War. Now the company has filed for bankruptcy protection for the second time in five years. Once its plan for liquidating is approved, the store’s A.&P. signs will come down. And the A.&P. name will vanish from New York.
. . .
Once, A.&P. had no competition. It all but invented the grocery store in the 19th century, and in the 20th century, it reinvented itself as a low-price, cash-and-carry chain. Its thousands of stores were “so devoid of frills that they are simply machines for selling food,” according to “The Great Merchants,” a history of retailers and retailing published in 1974.
But it had been fading for years. In the mid-1980s, a former A.&P. executive published a book “The Rise and Decline of the Great Atlantic & Pacific Tea Company” even as A.&P. continued to expand, buying Waldbaum’s and the Food Emporium chain in New York City and the Farmer Jack chain in the Midwest. A.&P. acquired Pathmark in 2007 for $679 million in a deal that involved significant debt. It also operated Super Fresh and Food Basics stores.
. . .
It began as a sideline for a hide and leather importer, George H. Gilman. “At some point around 1859 or 1860, there’s no precise date, he started selling tea,” said Marc Levinson, a historian and the author of “The Great A.&P. and the Struggle for Small Business in America.” “In 1860 or 1861, he gave up on the leather business, gave it to his brother, and decided to go into business as a tea wholesaler. He leased a property on Front Street. It’s the area where most of the ships carrying tea would come in.”
Mr. Levinson said a Gilman employee, George Huntington Hartford, became involved in the new business. Some accounts say it was Hartford who proposed eliminating middlemen — and cutting prices to consumers. From its earliest years, the little tea company promised in advertisements, it would “do away with various profits and brokerages, cartages, storages, cooperage and waste, with the exception of a small commission paid for purchasing to our correspondents in Japan and China.”
. . .
“I grew up on Long Island and the A.&P. was the only supermarket in the town I grew up in, which was Lynbrook,” said Ms. Fisch, 71. “Of course that’s where we shopped. It was bright and it was clean, which is totally different from the one in Riverdale. It’s like it’s been going out of business for a long time.”

For the full story, see:
JAMES BARRON. “A.& P. Bankruptcy Means New York, Chain’s Birthplace, Will Lose Last Store.” The New York Times, First Section (Sun., AUG. 2, 2015): 17.
(Note: ellipses added.)
(Note: the online version of the story has the date AUG. 1, 2015.)

The first book mentioned above, is:
Mahoney, Tom, and Leonard Sloane. The Great Merchants: America’s Foremost Retail Institutions and the People Who Made Them Great. Updated and Enlarged ed. New York: Harper & Row, 1974.

The second book mentioned above, is:
Walsh, William I. The Rise and Decline of the Great Atlantic & Pacific Tea Company. Secaucas, N.J.: Lyle Stuart, 1986.

Levinson’s great book, mentioned above, is:
Levinson, Marc. The Great A&P and the Struggle for Small Business in America. New York: Hill and Wang, 2011.

Peter Thiel Asks “What Happened to the Future?”

(p. B4) Mr. Thiel has been an important player in Silicon Valley since the first dot-com boom, but he has recently taken on a much more public role. He was born in Germany and came to the United States as an infant when his father, a chemical engineer, found work here. He was raised in Silicon Valley and went to Stanford, where he developed the views in his first book, “The Diversity Myth,” about the multiculturalism debate on campuses, written with the entrepreneur David O. Sacks.
In 1998, Mr. Thiel helped found the online payments company PayPal, an immediate success. He was the first outside investor in Facebook. Forbes estimates his net worth at $2.7 billion. Last year, he became a part-time partner at Y Combinator, a loosely defined advisory position.
A handful of others in Silicon Valley have similar investing track records. Where Mr. Thiel really separates himself from his peers is his skepticism that Silicon Valley is building a better world for all. His investment firm, Founders Fund, used to begin its online manifesto with the complaint, “We wanted flying cars; instead we got 140 characters,” a reference to Twitter. Now it says simply, “What happened to the future?”
San Francisco, Manhattan and Washington, D.C., are doing well, but the presidential campaign has laid bare the angst of many other places. Feelings of decline are rampant. “Most of the millennials have lower expectations than their baby boomer parents,” Mr. Thiel said. “Where I differ from others in Silicon Valley is in thinking that you can’t fence yourself off. If it continues, it will ultimately be bad for everybody.”

For the full story, see:
DAVID STREITFELD. “Peter Thiel, Contrarian Tech Billionaire, Defends His Support of Trump.” The New York Times (Mon., OCT. 31, 2016): B1 & B4.
(Note: ellipses added.)
(Note: the online version of the story has the date OCT. 29, 2016, and has the title “Peter Thiel Defends His Most Contrarian Move Yet: Supporting Trump.”)

The book mentioned above, that was co-authored by Thiel, is:
Sacks, David O., and Peter A. Thiel. The Diversity Myth: Multiculturalism and the Politics of Intolerance at Stanford. Oakland, CA: The Independent Institute, 1995.

Breakthrough Surgeon “Defied Skepticism”

(p. D8) Dr. Johnson was a reluctant surgeon — early on, he once recalled, “I disliked surgeons and their pompous attitudes” — but he applied the crocheting skills he had learned from his mother, who was a home economics teacher, and the needlecraft he was taught in a seventh-grade sewing class (he got an A), to perform more than 8,500 heart bypass operations over four decades.
. . .
Doctors had experimented with coronary artery surgery since the 1950s, the goal being to remove accumulated plaque caused by cholesterol deposits, which can block blood flow and cause the stabbing pain of angina. One method was to remove the clogged portion of an artery and graft on a replacement patch of cardiac membrane or a segment of vein from a leg.
In 1968, Dr. Johnson and his team took another path, sewing segments of veins from multiple arteries end to end and stitching them directly into the aorta, the body’s main artery, bypassing cardiac ducts where the flow of blood was impeded.
His breakthrough, reported the next year, defied skepticism within the medical profession and heralded a new era of successful double, triple and quadruple bypass surgeries.
“It was perhaps the presentation of Johnson in the spring of 1969 that had the greatest impact on the widespread use” of coronary artery bypass grafting, Dr. Eugene A. Hessel II wrote in “Cardiac Anesthesia: Principles and Clinical Practice,” published in 2001.
To facilitate surgery, Dr. Johnson made another breakthrough by temporarily stopping the heart and slowing the body’s metabolism by cooling and circulating the blood through a heart-lung machine.
. . .
Dr. Johnson’s multiple bypass surgeries, which could take as long as nine hours and were often accompanied by classical music in the operating room, were credited with saving an untold number of lives.
But in an interview with Dr. William S. Stoney for “Pioneers of Cardiac Surgery” (2008), Dr. Johnson said “the single biggest thing I ever did to lower mortality” was to prescribe the drug allopurinol, which is ordinarily used to inhibit the production of uric acid (high levels of it can cause gout), but which has also been found to improve survival in cardiac patients by improving their capacity for exercise.
. . .
“The coronary artery bypass graft operation does nothing for the basic cause of the disease,” Dr. Johnson said, adding, “Prevention is, of course, the ultimate answer.”

For the full obituary, see:
SAM ROBERTS. “W. Dudley Johnson, Heart Bypass Pioneer, Dies at 86.” The New York Times (Mon., OCT. 31, 2016): D8.
(Note: ellipses added.)
(Note: the online version of the obituary has the date OCT. 30, 2016, and has the title “W. Dudley Johnson, Heart Bypass Surgery Pioneer, Dies at 86.”)

Stoney’s book mentioned above, is:
Stoney, William S. Pioneers of Cardiac Surgery. Nashville: Vanderbilt University Press, 2008.

GE Shifts Away from Six Sigma and Toward Innovation

(p. B1) One of the biggest engineering projects under way at General Electric Co. these days isn’t a turbine or locomotive. It is reinventing the way the company’s employees are assessed, reviewed and even paid.
For decades, an ideal GE worker was one adept at squeezing out product defects and almost allergic to admitting uncertainty.
Now, as the 124-year-old company refocuses itself on industrial businesses, executives say top performers are those willing to take risks, test new ideas with customers and even make mistakes.
Leaders say GE’s multiyear effort to remake itself into a leaner, innovation-driven company requires a nimble workforce that can develop products faster and more cheaply. The shift is significant for GE, whose corporate ethos had long been embodied by Six Sigma, a manufacturing system designed to eliminate error, enshrining certainty and consistency.
. . .
(p. B6) The new style of measuring employees has roots in FastWorks, a companywide initiative intended to hasten product development and ensure that customers want new products before GE spends millions building them. It is based on Lean Startup, a management system popularized by Eric Ries, a 37-year-old author and consultant GE brought in with the blessing of Chief Executive Jeff Immelt to help employees get comfortable with trial, error and experimentation.

For the full story, see:
RACHEL EMMA SILVERMAN. “GE Tries to Reinvent the Employee Review, Encouraging Risks.” The Wall Street Journal (Weds., June 8, 2016): B1 & B6.
(Note: ellipsis added.)
(Note: the online version of the story has the title “GE Re-Engineers Performance Reviews, Pay Practices.”)

Ries’s Lean Startup management system is advocated in his book:
Ries, Eric. The Lean Startup: How Today’s Entrepreneurs Use Continuous Innovation to Create Radically Successful Businesses. New York: Crown Business, 2011.